Fires of Innocence, page 5
Punching her pillow, she stared into the darkness and thought about Calum and Abner. Now they were gone, just like her father. The sting of tears pressed against her eyes. And Jamie. Poor, dear Jamie. Now he, too, was alone. Besides Muggin, Jamie and Calum had been her best friends in the whole world. They’d grown up together. Hunted together. Explored together. And she and Jamie had experienced their first kiss together while Calum stood guard.
A rush of heat spread over her. Jamie’s kiss had been nothing like that rat of a lawyer’s. That was a bloody shame. Jamie was a man she could trust. She should have married him after her father had died. Maybe she would have, if he’d known of her father’s death. But he’d been gone from the valley for months. Calum and Abner had helped her with the funeral arrangements.
Glory snuffled in her stall and Rosie bleated softly, as if just now acknowledging Scotty’s arrival. The presence of her animals soothed her, and she drifted off to sleep.
Frantic pecking at her hair awakened her, and she gently pushed the bellicose hen aside. Glancing at the cabin entrance, she frowned, dreading the thought of going inside. A night’s sleep hadn’t made the idea of facing the man any more pleasant. But face him she must.
She stepped into the cabin and saw him attempting to reenergize the dying fire. He wasn’t very good at it.
Dropping her bedroll behind the screen, she went to brew some tea, watching him out of the corner of her eye. He poked and jabbed at the fire quite ineffectively. Her lip curled into a sneer. San Francisco lawyer. Worthless excuse for a man. Still a criminal in her mind. She went to him, unable to stand his inept attempts any longer.
“Here,” she said, taking the poker from him. “You’ll never get it started that way.” She tossed some kindling on top of the logs he’d added to the grate. “You might learn a thing or two while you’re here. Now that I know what you are, I’ve a feeling you’ll be as useful to me as tits on a bull.”
He laughed quietly. “How could your father stand to live with such a bossy girl?”
She whirled around, the poker dangerously close to his chest. Besides the fact that he called her a “girl,” which made her angry as sin, she didn’t like him talking about her papa as if he knew him. “There you go again, mentioning my father. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You know nothing about him.”
He pressed his wounded side and winced. “I know he was so engrossed in his own little corner of land that he couldn’t see the forest for the trees.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Oh, the irksome man just put her blood up. She was ready for a good fight.
He sat down in the chair by the fire. “For a man who claimed to want what was best for the valley, he stirred up an awful lot of trouble opposing it”
Angry pride made her see red. “There wasn’t a man alive who wanted to save this valley more than my father did.”
“Then why did he refuse to meet with us?”
She was incredulous. “You expected him to accept your reasons for kicking us out at face value? Lord, man,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief, “you’re the government, for pity’s sake. No one believes anything you have to say.”
Surprise registered on his face. “What did he think we were doing?”
Scotty laughed, but it was a harsh, cynical sound. “God only knows. But whatever it was, it was surely for your gain and not ours.”
“Where in the hell would he get a crazy idea like that?”
“Don’t you go calling my father crazy.” She would have liked to take a swing at him, but jammed her finger at his chest instead. “You know nothing about him. I’m sorrier than sin he didn’t live to meet the likes of you face-to-face. He might have been a small man, but in many ways, he was bigger than you’ll ever hope to be.”
He held one hand up, admitting defeat. She had a feeling he just didn’t want to hear her screech at him anymore.
Once the fire was blazing in the grate, she made breakfast, reluctantly sat down across from him and watched him shovel in two large portions of thick wheat porridge with cream and honey. But she wasn’t hungry. Truth to tell, she might never eat again. There was no way she’d get anything past the lump of anger that sat at the back of her throat—a direct result of his deceit.
San Francisco—Late October
Milo Janus bounded up the steps of his neighbor’s two-story Feusier Octagon Russian Hill home and rang the bell. The door opened, revealing the haughty, acid-tongued, middle-aged, English valet-butler Alex had inherited after the war.
“Winters,” Milo greeted, stepping into the dreary foyer. “How goes the fight?”
“If you mean, how are things without Master Alex, then they’re as well as can be expected.” Winters took Milo’s hat and coat and ushered him into the library.
Milo caught the brief look of concern that crossed the valet’s face before it was masked by his famous English reserve. That he worried about his employer’s welfare was evident; Winters usually found Milo’s manner unpleasant—to say the least—but he really didn’t give a damn.
“She will be with you momentarily, sir.”
Milo nodded, saluted the stuffy valet, and crossed to the well-stocked bar where he poured himself a brandy. It was a little early in the day for a drink, and he and Camilla had an afternoon performance of Othello at the Metropolitan, but the situation at hand warranted unusual measures.
The door burst open and Olga Popov, the plump housekeeper, scurried into the room. Gray hairs had come loose from her normally immaculate hairdo and now hung around her flushed face. Her dark eyes bore signs of sleeplessness.
“Any news about Sasha?”
Milo shook his head. “No one’s been able to get into the valley for over a week.”
She stepped to the fireplace and nervously brushed nonexistent dust off the highly polished marble mantel. “What means this, no one able to get in?”
As he took a long pull on his brandy, he played her speech pattern back in his head. As an actor, he was always looking for new personas. New accents. Olga Popov’s Russian accent was still heavy, even though she’d come to this country as a young girl. “Storms have closed the passes.”
Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, Saint Timothy,” she whispered, her gaze moving slowly to the painting above the fireplace.
Milo looked up at the portrait as well. “Is she that bad?”
Mrs. Popov paced back and forth in front of the fireplace, wringing her pudgy, work-worn hands. “Not good. Doctor is with her now.”
“Damn!” He and Alex had had their differences over the years, but right now, Milo wished there was a way to go into Yosemite and find him.
“I worry to death,” the housekeeper wailed as she sat down in a chair by the fire. “She’s making herself ill. The doctor feared this would happen if Sasha didn’t come home soon.”
“Now, let’s not think the worst,” Milo said. “If no one can get into the valley, no one can get out, either. Knowing Alex, he’s probably safe and sound, holed up somewhere warm and dry.”
“I pray you’re right, but that doesn’t help things around here.” She looked up at Milo and jabbed her forefinger against her ample bosom. “In here, in my old heart, I don’t feel my Sasha is dead.” She gazed at the fire, then up at the portrait again. “I wish I could convince her to feel it, too.”
“I trust your instincts, Olga.” Milo took another sip of his drink then laughed derisively. “Or maybe I just don’t want to believe otherwise.” He was still sorry his friendship with Alex had been severed because of Alex’s ex-wife Marlena. She hadn’t been worth it.
The housekeeper turned and looked at him. “When he goes to war, I hate to see him go. Bad, unhappy things were happening in his life. But I wasn’t afraid for him. Nyet. Nyet,” she added with a shake of her head as she stood and walked to the window. “I knew the good Lord would see fit to send him back to those who needed him.”
She turned and gave Milo a look of naked fear. “What if he can’t get out until spring? What will happen to her? Oh, Lord have mercy, what if he is dead?” She dug a handkerchief from her apron pocket and pressed it against her quivering mouth.
Milo put his drink down and joined her at the window. “Tough old birds like Alex don’t die young, Mrs. Popov.” He glanced at the painting above the fireplace again. “And she’s just like him. She’s much stronger than you think.”
He turned from the painting and gazed out over the gray, cloudy city, remembering the anguish his neighbor had gone through over the past few years—some of which was Milo’s own doing. He felt a brief stab of guilt. “They have a bond.”
She clutched the high, serviceable neck of her wool dress. “Da, I know. But how much can one so frail take? How much can we expect her to understand?”
She blew her nose. “There’s been enough pain in this family. They’ve had more than their share. Why the good Lord tests them again? Why?”
Milo returned to the table and retrieved his drink. He took a long swig, holding it in his mouth until the smooth brew stung the insides of his cheeks. Finally, he swallowed.
“Alex is like a cat. He was given nine lives.” He turned toward the picture above the mantel and raised his glass. “Here’s to you, friend. Let’s hope you have at least one of those lives left.”
Scotty watched the government man pace in front of the fire. It had been almost two weeks since he’d been shot, and though he wasn’t completely well, he’d healed remarkably fast.
Without verbal affirmation, they’d come to some sort of truce. Scotty wouldn’t yield to his way of thinking, and she was certain he felt the same way.
No matter how many times he tried to tell her she was wrong about the government’s motives, she didn’t believe him. Her father had always been right before, she found it hard to believe he’d been wrong about this.
Neither she nor her father had ever pictured the government as a benevolent group of men. If the lawyer believed in the government’s noble position, he’d either been bought off and was a crook, or was a fool. Somehow, Scotty couldn’t see him as either.
Sometimes she wondered if she and her father had been wrong. Maybe she didn’t want to believe the lawyer because it would mean such a devastating change for her and the others living in the valley.
Or maybe, she thought, her father didn’t want to believe it because generations ago his people had been driven from their own land by men such as these—men in power. It was the same old story. The strong against the weak. Well, more like the rich against the poor—but then, what was the difference?
What bothered her most, was that the fancy talking lawyer seemed earnest, and was almost believable.
Now, he continued to pace.
“You’re getting cabin fever,” she said as she pulled baked apples from a skillet in the fire.
He gave her a lopsided smile. “Is that what it is?”
“I know the symptoms well.” She lifted the apples onto a plate.
“I don’t doubt that’s part of it.” He came and stood beside her, something he did often—and it always made her feel giddy. “I can’t help but wonder what people will say when they find that we’ve been stuck here together.”
She thought of Jamie. Oh, the laddie would be angry enough to spit rock if he discovered she’d nursed the government man back to health after Calum had so admirably shot him. “What people say or think doesn’t matter to me.”
“You’re sure of that?”
She banged the skillet down on the counter, hard. “If I’d been bothered by what others think, I’d have changed my ways to suit them long ago.”
“Did you and your father do much socializing?”
Again, she thought of Jamie. And Calum and Abner. Outside of those three people, she and her father had stopped trying to socialize.
“We tried … twice, I think.” She laid a clean dish towel over the warm apples. “Once, when I was thirteen, Papa and I went to Mariposa for the day. We needed supplies, and they were having a celebration of some kind.” Her smile turned sad. “I was so excited, you know. I didn’t pay attention to how I was dressed. I looked pretty dreadful, no doubt, wearing Papa’s trousers and big shirt to cover my—” She felt herself blush and turned away.
“Anyway, as I walked under an open window, I heard some women talking about me.” She tried to laugh, but the sound got caught in her throat.
“What did they say?”
She poured hot water over the tea leaves in her teapot, then looked out the window. Although it was almost noon, the winter sun still hung low in the sky.
“You can probably guess. Something about the shameful way Papa was raising me, letting me run like a wild Indian, getting no education. Worst of all,” she added, “they were sitting there, laughing like parrots at a bagpiper about how I probably didn’t know anything about being a lady.”
“And they were wrong?”
“Oh, yes,” she answered. “Before Mama died, she made sure I knew all the fine things a young lady should know. Needlepoint, quilting, cooking … and Papa taught me to read and write. I’ve had a very full education.”
“Did you tell your father what you heard?”
She smiled, remembering the incident. “I didn’t have to. The preacher’s wife took Papa aside and scolded him royally for keeping me tucked away in the woods. She said it was a shameful way to raise any child, especially a girl.”
“You obviously didn’t agree.”
She thought about the many times she’d quietly envied the girls who came into the valley every summer. They wore pretty dresses, had parties, gentleman friends, and belonged to some intangible club that Scotty wasn’t asked to join. In truth, she was almost invisible to them. In a funny way, it hurt to be so blatantly ignored, even though she didn’t really want to be like them at all.
“We’ve done fine, the two of us,” she answered softly.
He crossed to the window by the door and looked out. “I’ve been studying your father’s maps.”
She glanced at him, wondering where this was leading. “And?”
“We’re not too far from the pass, are we?”
She slowly put her teacup on the table and clasped her hands together. “We could be at the base of the pass, and it wouldn’t matter. It’s still closed.” She’d grown rather accustomed to having him around, in spite of who he was.
He turned and looked at her. “But it’s sunny and warm today. Even yesterday the snow was packed. It would be easy to cross it in snowshoes.”
She almost laughed. “No one gets in or out once the pass is closed.” She didn’t tell him about her Indian friend, Tupi, who magically found his way to Mariposa even when the snow was fresh and high and the passes clogged.
He turned back to the window. “I’ve got to try.”
“But … but you’re not ready. You don’t know what it’s like out there—”
“I’ve got to try!”
“Don’t be a fool.” She watched him put on his boots. “You’ll kill yourself.”
“Then I’ll be out of your hair, won’t I?”
“Don’t make a joke of this,” she warned, forcing down her panic. “It’s going to storm today.”
He barked a laugh as he pulled on his woolen shirt. “I doubt it. There’s not a cloud in the sky.”
She stepped in front of him, touching his arm lightly with her hand. “Please,” she pleaded, her eyes wide with fear, “it’s not a good time.”
“Dammit, don’t you understand?”
She backed away, hating the nausea that swayed her. “What are you talking about?”
He grabbed her shoulders. “You and these … these wild animals you treat like pets are driving me crazy. Hell, maybe I will die out there. But right now I’d rather die out there than live another minute under the same roof as that … that churlish raccoon. This place might be a haven for you, but to me it’s a prison. And I’d kill for a cup of coffee. Do you understand me? Coffee. If I have to drink another cup of that damned bland water you call tea, I think I’ll vomit.”
Blinking back tears, she pushed his hands off her shoulders and stumbled away from him. “What a fool I am.” She sucked in a deep breath, forcing it past her quivering mouth. “Here I thought I might get lonely, or even sad if you left. Now, I can’t wait to be rid of your arrogant hide.”
He tucked his shirt into his pants. “You won’t have long to wait.”
“Well, don’t let me keep you.” She pulled his heavy sheepskin jacket from the hook by the door and threw it at him. Spying the snowshoes on the wall next to the fireplace, she stomped over, lifted them off their hooks and shoved them at his chest.
“Here,” she snapped, letting the oval wooden frames clatter to the floor. “Dinna say I never gave you anything.”
He glowered at her from beneath his satanic eyebrows and picked up the snowshoes.
“Well,” she snapped, impatient to have him gone, “what’s keeping you?”
He searched his pockets and frowned. “I can’t find my watch.” He pulled on his wool cap. “It belonged to my father. If you should happen to find it—”
“Oh, I’ll find it,” she snapped. “But maybe I’ll keep it as payment for nursing your self-centered, preening body back to health.” She strode to the door and held it open. “Now, get out, and good riddance.”
He stalked outside, the snowshoes under his arm.
She slammed the door behind him and, against her better judgment, went to the window to watch him leave. He fastened the snowshoes over his boots, squinted into the western sky and trudged off toward the sinking sun.
Scotty rubbed her arms with her hands and stared outside. As the day had progressed, her warning about the change in the weather had come true.
She looked at the dusky sky. Earlier in the day, she’d watched as broad-shouldered storm clouds shoved their way into the valley, bullying the white cotton batting puffs that had scudded along in front of them.
